What is Game Design?

Game design is the process of developing a vision for the target gameplay experience and designing the game’s mechanics, systems and rules. Games can be created for many reasons — entertainment, education and activity — and principles of game design are increasingly being applied to other fields in the form of gamification.

Elon’s Game Design Minor is a multidisciplinary program that gives students from a broad range of majors the opportunity to study, design and implement computer games. ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈ graduate from the program with the theoretical background, technological skills and active collaborative experiences in game development that lead to success in the field of digital games.

In a two-semester capstone project, ¾Ã¾ÃÈÈs bring skills and knowledge from their diverse majors to produce music, craft narratives, create digital art and program games which are frequently published on .Unreal Academic Alliance Badge

The Game Design minor is part of the Unreal Academic Partner Program, an initiative by Epic Games that recognizes universities committed to providing high-quality educational opportunities with experienced faculty, established curricula, and the resources needed to support student learning and professional development.

Careers in Game Design

¾Ã¾ÃÈÈ who complete Elon’s Game Design Minor are prepared to enter jobs in the gaming industry including:

  • Game designer
  • Level designer
  • Gameplay programmer
  • Environment designer
  • Narrative designer

Skills Cultivated in the Game Design Minor:

  • Understanding the elements of game design and their use to create novel game ideas.
  • How to analyze existing games and investigate their core designs.
  • Working effectively within a multidisciplinary team.
  • Writing design documents for different aspects of the design process involving game design, level design, and environment design.
  • Applying Scrum practices to a game development project.
  • Experience with the process involved in publishing computer games.
  • Using rapid prototyping and playtesting to develop games in the iterative process.
  • Knowledge of effective usability design principles involved in creating user interfaces in games.
  • Familiarity with the core game development pipeline involved in gameplay programming, level design, environment design and narrative design.